brenthutch

No the continuing drop in price from a dramatic increase in efficiency was not possible due to physics. Read the article

Somewhere between your article and the reality experienced by the bill paying public, something profound happens. California which generates more than half of its electricity from renewables charges $.18kWh and Louisiana which gets less than 5% of its electricity from renewables pays only $.09kWh.

Bill, just because something is technically feasible doesn't make it economically or politically feasible.

I take issue with the boondoggles of wind and solar. Their sporadic output plays havoc with the grid, they have to be backed up with conventional power (mostly fossil fuel), their wide spread adoption results in skyrocketing electric prices, they are a waste of billions of taxpayer dollars and they are an eyesore. I'm not some anti-tech Luddite, I love new technology, just look at what advances in the recovery of tight oil and natural gas have brought us. As for the future, the money wasted on w&s would be more wisely spent on developing better ways to split atoms or better yet, how to fuse them.

It is clearly laid out earlier in this thread. And let me get this straight, do you think that with further development we can get more concentrated sunlight?

Good point, I used a personal example. I should have used yours. Just because someone can hold their breath for 22 minutes doesn't mean that with additional training they would be able to hold their breath for 132 minutes ( the gap renewables would have to close to be on par w fossil fuels)

Ok you've got me, I should have said because of physics. Just because over the years I have been able go from holding my breath from one minute to nearly two minutes, doesn't mean with additional training I will be able to hold my breath for twelve minutes. It is illustrative that your examples are one day and three days. You failed to address Germany's stratospheric electricity prices and its GROWING carbon footprint.

No it can't happen because of reality.

Yes yes, disaster is always just right around the corner yet it never seems to arrive. Polar bears, the Great Barrier Reef, summer Arctic sea ice, the Maldives, tornadoes, floods, droughts, wildfires, famine, hurricanes, desertification, acne, male sterility, war, cats and dogs living together on and on and on. Net net the social cost of fossil fuels is negative,(a negative cost is a positive for those who did not go to business school) and the downside is largely imaginary. On a side note Governor Cuomo cited the climate as a reason why people were fleeing NY for TX and FL. If climate change was a problem wouldn't folks be moving in the OTHER direction?

Not really, the green new deal is predicated on the notion that there will be an explosion of innovation and advances in green energy technology. Physics and math say otherwise.

The green new deal

It not a matter of what may come, it's a matter of what is right here, right now. Everywhere wind and solar have been widely adapted, electricity prices have risen significantly. Germany 51% from 2006-2016, California 24% from 2011-2017, Denmark 100% since 1995 (when they began to shift to wind). People are suffering now. https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/369386-germany-shows-how-shifting-to-renewable-energy-can-backfire

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/can-germany-revive-its-stalled-transition-to-clean-energy

When you said "but anyway for real world results look at the countries/cities/states that are making giant strides in reducing renewables." I assume you meant to say fossil fuels instead of renewables. Let's take a look at what that looks like in the real world. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2018/12/17/texas-taxpayers-pay-for-political-virtue-signaling-with-costly-renewable-energy/

So things like the Shockley-Queisser limit, the Betz limit mathematics and the laws of thermodynamics don't exist? That IS magical thinking. I would like Kallend to join in and help flesh out some of this. Seriously.

REPORT: GREEN ENERGY ECONOMY IS SIMPLY ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ Date: 26/03/19 Mark P. Mills, Manhattan Institute Hydrocarbons—oil, natural gas, and coal—are the world’s principal energy resource today and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. Wind turbines, solar arrays, and batteries, meanwhile, constitute a small source of energy, and physics dictates that they will remain so. Meanwhile, there is simply no possibility that the world is undergoing—or can undergo—a near-term transition to a “new energy economy.” A movement has been growing for decades to replace hydrocarbons, which collectively supply 84% of the world’s energy. It began with the fear that we were running out of oil. That fear has since migrated to the belief that, because of climate change and other environmental concerns, society can no longer tolerate burning oil, natural gas, and coal—all of which have turned out to be abundant. So far, wind, solar, and batteries—the favored alternatives to hydrocarbons—provide about 2% of the world’s energy and 3% of America’s. Nonetheless, a bold new claim has gained popularity: that we’re on the cusp of a tech-driven energy revolution that not only can, but inevitably will, rapidly replace all hydrocarbons. This “new energy economy” rests on the belief—a centerpiece of the Green New Deal and other similar proposals both here and in Europe—that the technologies of wind and solar power and battery storage are undergoing the kind of disruption experienced in computing and communications, dramatically lowering costs and increasing efficiency. But this core analogy glosses over profound differences, grounded in physics, between systems that produce energy and those that produce information. In the world of people, cars, planes, and factories, increases in consumption, speed, or carrying capacity cause hardware to expand, not shrink. The energy needed to move a ton of people, heat a ton of steel or silicon, or grow a ton of food is determined by properties of nature whose boundaries are set by laws of gravity, inertia, friction, mass, and thermodynamics—not clever software. This paper highlights the physics of energy to illustrate why there is no possibility that the world is undergoing—or can undergo—a near-term transition to a “new energy economy.” Among the reasons: * Scientists have yet to discover, and entrepreneurs have yet to invent, anything as remarkable as hydrocarbons in terms of the combination of low-cost, high-energy density, stability, safety, and portability. In practical terms, this means that spending $1 million on utility-scale wind turbines, or solar panels will each, over 30 years of operation, produce about 50 million kilowatt-hours (kWh)—while an equivalent $1 million spent on a shale rig produces enough natural gas over 30 years to generate over 300 million kWh. * Solar technologies have improved greatly and will continue to become cheaper and more efficient. But the era of 10-fold gains is over. The physics boundary for silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells, the Shockley-Queisser Limit, is a maximum conversion of 34% of photons into electrons; the best commercial PV technology today exceeds 26%. * Wind power technology has also improved greatly, but here, too, no 10-fold gains are left. The physics boundary for a wind turbine, the Betz Limit, is a maximum capture of 60% of kinetic energy in moving air; commercial turbines today exceed 40%. * The annual output of Tesla’s Gigafactory, the world’s largest battery factory, could store three minutes’ worth of annual U.S. electricity demand. It would require 1,000 years of production to make enough batteries for two days’ worth of U.S. electricity demand. Meanwhile, 50–100 pounds of materials are mined, moved, and processed for every pound of battery produced.

Fair points Bill. I was using "income inequality" as a proxy for wealth. And the "full stop" was just a bit of hyperbole to get the conversation going. I was just pushing back on the evil millionaires and billionaires meme.

I was thinking more like: The Pegula Ice Arena is a 6,014-seat multi-purpose arena in University Park, Pennsylvania on the campus of Penn State University. The arena opened on October 11, 2013 when the Penn State Nittany Lions men's ice hockey hosted Army.[3] The ice arena replaced the 1,350-seat Penn State Ice Pavilion. The facility is located on the corner of Curtin Road and University Drive near the Bryce Jordan Center. It was announced on January 21, 2011 that the arena would be named in honor of Kim and Terry Pegula whose $100 million donation helped fund the arena and the creation of men's and women's varsity ice hockeyprograms.[4]

Bill you are making my point. He was only able to buy Tesla and start SpaceX BECAUSE he was rich. Given the chance, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren would have redistributed his wealth long before he had enough money to buy Tesla

Without income inequality Musk never could have bought Tesla in the first place or SpaceX for that matter, there would be no Virgin airline or SpaceShipOne and Penn State,and I suspect many universities, would be missing half of their buildings.

No that is nothing like my argument at all.

As you correctly point out scientists like discovering new things and you also stated that new technology is expensive. Unless expensive technology has a market, it remains a curiosity. As I see it there are two entities who can afford new technology, governments and the wealthy. Government investment in technology has historically been linked to war and war related activities. My OP was about non war related progress not about the initial invention. Yes the Wrights invented the airplane, but it was just an interesting gadget until governments figured out how to kill people with them. If you take away government you are left with the wealthy as the remaining entitie which can create a market for expensive new technology. Tesla is a great example.

HDTV, Flatscreen displays, airbags, backup cameras, (in fact almost all driver assist features) and high end food items to name a few.

Almost everything you listed had its genesis in war/defense. I explicitly made the distinction in my OP

I agree that income inequality does not create new technology, income inequality (aka the existence of rich folks) creates a market for the new technology. Without the market the technology would languish on the drawing board.